Silence
by autumnamberleaves
Summary: One boy. One gun. Eleven Hundred Innocents.
1. Chapter 1

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**Please read this before reading the story:**

_**Silence**_ was co-authored by **Zudit** and **Autumnamberleaves**. We came up with this title a week ago after finding an appropriate qoute. We do not own the characters that you will recognize. Some are original characters and most of those we own.This story is dedicated to the people who lost their lives April 16th last year and to those who survived the brutal massacre on the campus of Virginia Tech. I (Autumn) call home the same state in which the attack occurred. Over half of my high school graduating class of 2003 went to Virginia Tech and I was one of the people waiting for news about friends. I remember the terror friends and I felt as we tried to get any news we can and the sinking feeling of recognizing a name, though I did not personally know the person well enough to call a friend. I had met her though. One of my friends lost three friends in the attack, including her best friend. I remmember the horror that she felt, the tears fallen for her three friends. Her best friend was not recognizable. I was one of the blessed people that waited. This story is my way of working the event out on paper. We chose to balance out featured Wildcats with original characters because in the setting which we carry our story, everyone is equal. We hope that our story will be a service to our readers. Thank you.

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In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

-Martin Luther King

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Smooth and comforting, tucked up against his shoulder. It made Cody Jones feel powerful even as it left bruises on his shoulder. Even as the other students ran for cover. Even as scarlet stuck to the bottom of his sneakers and followed behind him.

It sounded like something from a dream, but it was painfully real. Oh so painful as Kelsi's long fingers pressed against the wound, his chest moving up and down like a frightened bird's, his eyes wide, jaw tight. A cry escaped his lips, high pitched and strained. Her fingers, painted red, brushed at his face quickly before coming back to apply pressure to his chest. Her lips placed gentle kisses on his eyelids.

"Kelsi. Kelsi," his voice came, high-pitched and frightened.

"I'm here. Right here," she replied.

His quick breaths continued. "I...I don't wanna die."

Kelsi looked away. Looked back out the doors, where the boy with the gun had retreated into the hall. He had come like a shadow, swift and dark. Ryan had stood at the sight of him, "I'm sorry, this is a closed practice." That was how their nightmare had begun.

Caleb lay in the hallway. A million things had run through his mind when he'd seen the boy with the gun.

The first had been that he knew the boy. Cody Jones. He'd been in orchestra with him. He played violin and sat right in front of him and his cello. Caleb had always been friendly towards him. Cody was all right in his eyes.

The second thought was not quite a thought, but more of a feeling of utter confusion as he felt cold lead rip through him. Three times and he fell to the floor, unable to move. He couldn't fathom Cody doing this to him. He could not understand.

Caleb could only to look up at Cody who stood with his legs on either side of his body, staring down at him. No emotion showed on his thin face. Caleb blinked, the only movement besides the rise and fall of his chest. Cody was gone as quickly as he had come.

Caleb was left alone, as students ran by.

A pool of scarlet waters. In the center was a body. The body of the basketball player, Chad Danforth.

"Oh, Chad why didn't you come when I called?" Sharpay already knew the answer as she took off her designer sweater and watched it turn forever red as she pressed it on her friend's chest, above his weakly beating heart.

"Tell Taylor...I love her..." Chad lisped the request.

"Chad, you'll be able to tell her yourself," Sharpay lied, fully knowing that short of a miracle, the boy would drown in the pool forming around his athletic frame. His solid hands, his many curls, his strong appearance now appeared broken as he drowned in what was becoming an ocean of his own blood.

"Shar--" He gasped fitfully, trying to force life into failing luns, "Sharpay, please...just do it..." His breathing was becoming increasingly labored.

"Okay...I will...but you'll be fine!" Sharpay knew her friend would go down as a hero. He had saved four girls' lives, one being her own.

Sharpay had shouted at him not minutes before, "Chad, get over here, he's coming! Hurry!" The pair had been working on history project and had heard the battle cries and death throes of the other students. Chad had shoved the blonde girl in a janitor's closet and had rushed over to help a group of girls to get to the hiding place as well. He pushed them all in the place and started to climb in.

He was too late.

He coming his way, his death manifested in a wiry boy full of the life he was about to take. Chad closed the door of his only escape to protect the hidden.

"I hope you've had a good breakfast, because it's the last meal you'll ever have."

A trigger cocking was a deafening noise.

The color of Autumn's hair seemed to melt into the color of red that covered the floor; both similar to the leaves of her namesake season. The petite girl realized as she wordlessly took in her surroundings that she would not be on time for her Equestrian lessons that afternoon. It would be the first time that she had ever been late at her second home. She stared up from her resting place gazing at the looming computer and remembered the PowerPoint she was making for her boss and mentor, Mrs. Lovette. Her hard work was gone to waste.

It had only been two minutes ago that Autumn had been contently working on the project in East High's computer media lab when her world exploded with fiery force, who knew that a piece of rounded metal aimed from a distance could topple a person from a chair. She ached to feel the wound that had invaded her neck.

"Help…" but no one heard.

Troy sat under the library tables with Martha and Taylor. Both girls were crying and he himself felt the need to cry. He had no idea where Gabriella was, nor did Taylor have any knowledge of Chad, except for a 'horrid feeling' that sat on her chest like a stone.

The girls held onto each other, with Troy wrapping his arms around them protectively. It sounded like a war outside, and none of them truly wanted to see battle.

A sound outside the gymnasium caused the other girls to drop Annie Sherman during a flying trick and she landed hard on the floor, injuring her shoulder.

The noise. It was familiar, but so obtuse in her own world that it took a moment to realize what it was. She understood quickly, though, and struggled to stand up. She began to head for the door, even as another girl, Keisha, tried to pull her away. Annie shook her off. "No, I have to find Chuckie!" she insisted.

She opened the door, and hurried out into the hall, pushing past the other students. Keisha followed behind her, begging her to come back and hide with her.

Annie found Jason, pulling another member of the basketball team behind him. "Jason!" she ran to him, "Oh, Jas, have you seen Chuckie?"

He shook his head. "Not since last period, sorry."

She hurried on, tripping over what she found to be the body of that skater kid. The one who played cello in the orchestra. She briefly reflected on the tragedy that she could not remember his name.

In a moment, she found herself on the ground beside him. Her head ached, and she thought she had heard that awful noise and Keisha screaming. She felt herself drift away.

Caleb watched Annie Sherman out of the corner of his eye. He had dreamed of laying this close to her, but not like this. Not with her eyes rolled back in her head and that horrid bleeding hole in her head.

Her fingers were brushing his, but he could not feel it. He could only watch. She had been too beautiful. He had watched her from a distance. He wrote her a letter once, but had torn it up before he could sign it. He didn't have the guts, she wasn't meant for him. She'd been looking for Chuckie, that boyfriend of hers, all wide smiles and odd hair. She was meant for him. She was meant to be with him. Now she was here, laying next to him.

She looked like she was sleeping.

She was not.

Ryan lay hyperventilating on the ground, Kelsi leaning over him, begging him to calm down, to breath evenly. He tried. He couldn't.

His blood now stained his once cleaned and pressed shirt. His hat lay at his side. His pale hand gripped at the hem of her skirt, desperate for something real to hold onto. Her own clothes were stained with his blood. A smear rested on her cheek, where she had wiped her face. Her hands still pressed against the wound in his chest.

They both wept in fear.

He needed help. She could find it, though she was loathe to leave him.

"Ryan?" He didn't hear. "Ryan!"

He looked, eyes wide, panicked, fearful.

"I have to go--"

"No, no. No. No. Please, don't go. Don't leave me, Kelsi, please," his pleas were desperate. That of a child. That of a dying man.

"No, Ryan, listen. I have to go find help for you," she explained, slowly, looking him straight in the eye. "I'll be back. Just hold this rag, here, okay?" He nodded. "Okay. I'll be right back."

He held out a weak hand to her and leaned in towards him. He took his hand behind her head and, understanding, she leaned in and kissed him, pressing her lips harshly against his.

She pulled away. "I'll be right back."

Gabriella had taken Home Economics that year. Her cooking skills had come to be above average, matching her other classes, with help and subsequently she had been placed in the advanced class with Zeke.

Though the students in this class were normally called upon to provide tasty treats for the faculty, their abilities would be in doubt now if someone was to look into the classroom. A burnt smell rose to the air as if riding on the back of the smoke that was pouring out of the forgotten ovens, abandoned when the first shots were heard.

Gabriella and Zeke were the only ones left. They had been the last out. Cody Jones shot at them as he rounded a corner and they had stumbled back into the room, locking the door and taking refuge behind the counters.

"Zeke, here, let me wrap that for you." Gabriella took a clean dish cloth and wrapped it around Zeke's crimson hand. "We're lucky he missed."

"I hope the others are as lucky." Zeke's voice grew anxious "Do you think...Sharpay?" he asked, afraid of the answer.

"I don't know..." Gabriella replied softly, thinking of her own love.

They sat there, curled into their fears.

Micah stood conjugating at the whiteboard. The 'avoirs' and the eyes of the other students stared at him. The words, written in red, were an enigma to him and he could only stand there, and try to conjure the answers in his mind.

Behind him the door flew open, but he did not have time to turn. A new shade of red splattered the whiteboard the sound of thunder echoed in the class.

Cody Jones paced the halls, stumbling over the dead and injured. It was absolute carnage. In his mind something dark began to grow. Cody began to shake.

Caleb was drawing his last breaths. He still watched the beautiful face of Annie next to him. He was filled with such longing, such ache. This was something he'd dreamed of, but it wasn't right, it wasn't meant to be like this.

Footsteps came up. He saw Cody wandering up the hall, not the same boy who had shot him early. He stumbled over Annie's body and her pale hand found its way into his palm. Caleb's heart fluttered, he let his eyes drift shut for good, though they never once left the sight of her hand in his.

Kelsi was hurrying down the halls. They were mostly empty, except for the few dead or injured students. She was too focused to check on them. She had to make it out the door or to the nurses office, someplace to where she could find someone or something that would be of benefit to Ryan.

She ran past the library and stopped in her tracks. At the end of the hall stood a surprised Cody Jones. He looked shocked to see her and she seemed to have pulled him out of some thought. His gun seemed to rise in slow motion, but Kelsi knew how quick the moment had really been.

She felt multiple rounds hit her, as she slipped to the ground. Screams could be heard from inside the library, but she didn't hear it. In her mind, she could only hear Ryan's voice, pleading with her. "Don't leave me" he had said.

But she did.

Martha's eyes flicked up at the movement outside the library doors. It was a flash of color, and hint of shape she recognized. "Kelsi," she whispered, pointing. Troy and Taylor looked up at their little playmaker standing outside the library doors. She was frozen in place, her skin dyed a scarlet.

All three hearts skipped a beat as rounds were shot and cries of surprise and then anguish escaped their lips. One after another the rounds were fired and girl was forced backwards a few steps before she fell out of their view. All wept for their comrade that they could not reach.

Chuckie bled from his side and chest. He did not have much life left, he could not find the breath to sustain him. He spent the last few breaths, though, on Micah. He had never spoken to the boy, but now, as they lay a few feet apart, they had their first conversation.

"I'm scared," he had said.

"Me, too," Micah had replied.

They both lay silent for a moment, before Micah reached out and clasped Chuckie's hand so firmly, that he winced. It was then that the basketball player and the quiet boy died.

There were no heroics or speeches, but there was something.

Sharpay gazed at Chad, her eyes glossy, her thin body quivering. She was going into shock, but she did not comprehend this nor did she care. Shaking, she touched the boy's shoulder. "Chad?" the basketball player's eyes flickered.  
"I'm scared." The tough exterior had been broken that day, crumbling and laying in ruin around him, sinking into scarlet seas.  
Sharpay instinctively took the muscular boy and wrapped her thin arms around him into a hug. She could offer little but this simple action. Her sweater covered his wound, stained and soggy from his blood. She knew the sweater was no longer needed. Chad was fading.

"Sharpay...please tell Taylor and my family...I tried..." Chad's voice faltered. His eyes rolled back into his head.  
Sharpay bent her head and for the first time in a long time, Sharpay wept for someone other than herself.

How long? He couldn't recall. He hadn't entered the school more than a half hour before. Already the smooth, comforting object had lost its meaning. Its comfort. Already the bruises on his shoulders bloomed violet and felt wrong. Already he looked around and felt remorse.

His thumb ran up and down the barrel of the machine. His sneakers stuck to the floor for all the wrong reasons. The shadows in his mind closed in.

He stroked the rifle.

Ryan's chest pumped up and down. He was alone. He wanted to curl into himself and hide because he had heard the gun shots, one after another and he had cried and tried to scream. It was all so unreal. It was all so ruthless. It was all so pointless.

He was so afraid.

Sharpay's tears gave root for new worry, a paralyzing fear for her brother. Where was Ryan? Something did not feel right.

Zeke winced. His hand hurt more than he would ever let on to Gabriella. He knew he would be fine, so therefore he found no need to worry the Gabriella further than she was bound to be.

Glancing up, he saw her staring out of the window. "Hey."

She looked up, pulled from her thoughts. "Hey," she said with a small smile to him, that quickly fell. "Do you think...do you think that our friends are safe?" The dark-haired girl could not shake the feeling that everyone's lives were about to be forever changed. The school housed all of her friends. She had never had any true or lasting friends, until she transferred to East High.

Zeke knew that Gabriella was not looking for an answer meant only to please. "I don't know," came his reply and he let her lean against him.

It was like thunder. It was like the sky breaking. It was like a sonic boom. It was like Hell cracking open. It was like everything ever feared.

It was like perfect, yet sick, relief when it was discovered the Cody Jones had kissed the barrel of his rifle, and kissed goodbye to the world.


	2. Chapter 2

Strong hands and arms pulled him up. Wide, stern mouths asked his name, age and other such things that Ryan thought were stupid when his student identification was still in his pocket. They applied pressure where he could no longer, they began to pull him back from his precarious perch about death. The strong hands lifted him, the wide mouths spoke comforting words but this was not what he wanted.  
The hands were not the thin, delicate fingers that he longed for. The mouths were not so small and just beginning to smile. The comforting words were not spoken softly, with a gentle stutter that he'd come to adore.  
Where was Kelsi?

Annie and Caleb were found side-by-side. Her hand rested, gently, in his open palm. Her lips were pursed and still held color despite her pale face. His head was turned, ever so slightly, towards her, his eyes closed, a delicate smile playing on his lips. Both looked to be at utter peace.

This was what was found by officers and paramedics. It was heartbreaking.

The clasping of hands. So tight, so strong even in death. Both pairs of eyes open, staring at each other. Two finding solidarity in their deaths. Two in a sea of dead.

Troy and the girls were found with a group of students who had taken refuge in the library. They were given blankets and led down the halls, where they sobbed at the sight of the little piano player, lying outside the doors, and the other students, lying in the halls. They were taken to their families and friends who embraced them and kissed them and cried into each other's sweaters.

Anguish and releif fell, enough to drown in.

Kelsi's body was brought out with the others. Her parents and sisters had come and kissed her fingers, her lips and cried in anguish. Ryan did not see her body, only heard her name cried over and over and knew she was dead.

The uniformed, gun-clad officer found the blonde girl in the hall, soaked in blood. At second glance, he knew it was not her own that was clothing her. The girl held a dark-skinned and lifeless boy, the shell of Chad Danforth.  
"Miss..." Sharpay did not respond. "Miss," he tried again, "you need to let him go. There's nothing more you can do." The man gently took her by her arm and led her away from the dead boy.  
Sharpay's heart beat rapidly. "No! I have to stay with him! He needs me," she cried as she struggled to rush towards her fallen comrade.

"Miss..." he leaned down to her level, gently taking her shoulders in his strong grip, "I'm sorry, but we need to go. I'm sure you were a great comfort to him in his last hour." The policeman once again led the girl through the halls of the bloodied school. It was not until they were outside that Sharpay stopped struggling to get back to Chad.  
She had found her brother.

"Ryan!" Before the officer knew what happened, she had broken from his grasp and had raced to her brother's side. Brother and sister met. 'I love you, Ry-Ry," she spoke. Hand held hand as they were whisked to awaiting ambulances.

The computer buzzed, waiting for a command from its user. No one heeded its call as the door slowly opened and a weary policewoman stepped into the lab. She noticed the body right away. Her worst nightmare had just grown larger as she stared at Autumn Rhys Holliday.  
Her daughter.  
Dead.

Gabriella no longer heard the enemy storming in the form of the wiry boy. In its place rose the cries of the prisoner's of their own war. Sad and deep, the voices of students and staff alike pierced the brief silence.  
They waited, listening.  
She turned to Zeke.

"I think it's over." Her voice sounded foreign even to her.

"Yeah." Zeke's voice too was strained.

"How...bad...do you think it was?" Gabriella bit her lip as she considered, not for the first time, all the lives.

"Bad," Zeke could only mutter that one word.

The door banged with a rude rhythm. Gasping, Gabriella dove behind the counter that had been the pair's foxhole. "Kids?" it was a man's voice, calm but anxious at the same time. "Anyone in there?"

"Yes...sir?" Zeke motioned to the frightened girl to venture from her refuge as he opened the door slowly.

"It's okay...let's get you kids out of here." The officer turned towards Zeke, then, eyeing his dishcloth-wrapped hand. "Son, that hand needs to be checked into."

"I'm fine," Zeke argued but he was ignored.

When he spotted her outside the school he had run to her, kissed her far more passionately than he had ever before. Her came, sweeping her up in her arms and he stepped away, allowing them their reunion.  
Behind him, he saw Zeke's family wrap their arms around him. Watched him struggle to pick up his little brother with just one arm, before his father stopped him and led him over to the paramedics.

Jason came up beside him. "Geez, man, what a day, huh?"

Troy looked up at him, tiredly, "Understatment of the year, man."

Troy would never tell anyone, but he had nightmares for weeks. His every fear and heartbreak worked its way out in his dreams. He attended both Chad and Kelsi's funerals. In the next week, he helped Gabriella and Taylor plan the vigil.

A week. A week spent in the hospital, with his sister bent over him, constantly talking at him. He stayed silent. He was released in time for the memorial, and at such wept until he fainted onto the ground and was driven home by Troy and Coach Bolton.  
He tried and failed three times in the next year to kill himself, each time ending up in the hospital. It wasn't until Taylor visited him that time and screamed at him that he finally stopped, allowing himself to make the effort to move on.

It was Martha who sat in front of the piano and played "I Can Only Imagine" for her. It felt so wrong to sit behind a piano, here of all places, at her funeral.  
From her vantage point, Martha could see her coffin, see her face. She looked like she was sleeping. Ryan couldn't make it, but she made sure to kiss her once for his sake, because she had promised. Her lips were cold.  
Martha went home after the funeral and lay down to sleep. In her mind, she saw Kelsi fall over and over. She saw Chad's dead body. She saw Ryan carried out, bathed in his own blood. She saw Chuckie and that boy who played the cello and Micah from Book Club. She saw all of these and she couldn't stop seeing them.

An entire congregation dressed in white for him. A celebration of his life, not a mourning of his death. While they still cried, they remembered to dance, to sing. Strains of "I'll Fly Away" caught the wind and sailed to heaven where they knew he'd be.  
Taylor thought she'd die without him, but she found herself getting better as the months went on. She didn't wake from dreams with his lips lingering on hers, his curls brushing her cheek. She didn't turn and look at every boy that resembled him. She didn't cry so much at random moments, and not everything reminded her of him anymore.  
She became closer with Sharpay, the girl who Chad had spent his last hours with. She had come with her the last night that Ryan tried to kill himself. When he had confessed to her that he didn't want to live without Kelsi, that there was no point, she had stood then and in a rush of frustration and anger she had struck him. He had looked stunned.

"You think you're the only one?" she had screamed, wrapping her hands tightly around his bandaged wrists, "You think that there aren't days where I don't want to die? You're so selfish! Kelsi died for you and what do you do? Try and off yourself! Do you have any idea how dishonoring that is to her memory?"

He had stared at her for a few seconds before he put his head in his hands and began to sob.

Cody Jones body was brought out, covered in a sheet. No one saw his face, no got one their one last look. The photographers, the camera men all bustled for their money shot. All the students turned away.

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_I'll Fly Away_ was written by Albert E. Brumley whilst "_I can Only Imagine_ was written by "MercyMe." These are songs that are dear to us I (Autumn) wish to have "_I Can Only Imagine_" played at my funeral, hopefully in the far future.


	3. Chapter 3

A Wednesday.

Cloudy.

Hundreds of stars rested near the earth,held by the students of East High. Hundreds of students, hundreds of candles and a list of names.

Chastity Marie Adams

Micah Benjamin Applegate

Jordan Michael Baxter

Regan Ray Benjamin

AnnaSophia Bishop

Kemp A. Carlson

Riley Samuel Chen

Chad Ben Zion Danforth

Claudia Michelle Daniels

Grayson Jeramiah Every

Lee Everett Fredricks

Jakob Ya'akov Greenburg

Autumn Rhys Holliday

Bryant A Ilkson

Alana Meghan Johnson

Grace Marie Johnson

Eric Kim

Charles Edmond Klapow

Zudit Abigail Rose Lindstrom

Tabitha Marie Matthews

Kelsi Ann Neilson

Shaun Peter Nyguen

Seth Elijah Peterson

Ms Jasmine Santiago

Annie Piony Sherman

Joy Catherine Steth

Brendan C Tailor

Devon Priscilla Tate

Justin Allen Underhill

Caleb Simon Peter Whitlock

David Johnson-Zimmerman

_Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (Corinthians 13:7-8)_

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**Well, we have reached the end of "Silence." Thank you for reading.**


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